Long Walk Down a Short Dirt Road
by Twinings
Summary: When there's rescuing to be done, it's always good to have someone you can count on. -CAT-


_Disclaimer: I do not own this setting or most of the characters in it._

_This is a CATfic (www. catverse. com) taking place in Arc 5, September 2014, after--according to my files, which are rather confused--"Deathrace 2000" and definitely following shortly after "Stray CAT Strut."_

* * *

Long Walk Down a Short Dirt Road

There were a million different ways to escape Arkham Asylum, some of them easier to pull off than others. There was the laundry chute, not the smartest way to try, but one that did occasionally get results. There was always a guard who could be bribed, bullied, mind-controlled, or murdered and hollowed out to make a clever disguise. And, of course, blowing a hole in the wall was always a classic.

But when those ways were unavailable, sometimes a patient had to—if the pun may be excused—have patience. Waiting for outside help could wear on the nerves just as much as anything that went on inside.

The Scarecrow had been waiting for three weeks. It wasn't as bad as it could have been—just _tedious_. The doctor they had assigned him was too unimaginative to be frightened by subtle manipulation, and a bad doctor besides, even by Arkham's standards. He couldn't get close enough to any of the guards to work on _them_. And even the other inmates were proving troublesome. Half of them had to pester him for all the gory details about Wonder Woman's Amazonian lovemaking. The other half, having realized that it hadn't been his idea, were laughing at him. There was no getting through to _them_.

So, reluctantly, he withdrew. It wasn't hard to convince his doctor that he was in no shape for socialization with the other patients, especially after Killer Croc gave him a friendly slap on the back at lunch that sent him flying across the table. It _did _knock him silly for a minute; it wasn't hard to pretend that he was worse off than he was.

As an added bonus, Al and the Captain had seen the whole thing, and hadn't been able to do a thing about it. His overprotective minions must be going out of their minds with worry.

He spent his days alone in his cell, reading, listening with half an ear to what gossip came his way, planting seeds of self-doubt in the mind of the orderly who brought his meals. For two hours every day he put up with the doctor's fumblefingered attempts to "reach" him, and learned what he could about the new experimental drugs they tried to make him take. He slept and ate and bided his time.

And before too long, his waiting paid off.

It was just past midnight when Techie made her appearance in the hallway outside his cell. He wasn't allowed a watch, but he knew the guards had made two sweeps since the lights went out at 10:00. He had whispered to them both times as they passed by his cell.

Techie knocked on the glass to make sure she had his attention, as if he really would have missed her. She waved to him and set to work on the lock, an electronic one that suited her skills very nicely. It was a modification of one of Bolton's designs that had been so state of the art when they had been implemented. Ten years later, they were still damnably difficult to crack.

But Techie could do it if anyone could. She was a girl who loved her gadgetry.

Jonathan moved up to the glass to keep a watch on the corridor behind her. She _should_ have made sure of the guards before coming to him, but he could never be too sure with his impatient three.

Across the way, Harley Quinn lifted her head from her pillow to get a look at what was going on. He raised a hand to her. She smiled at him, waved back, and put her head back down.

If there was ever such a thing as honor among thieves, it took a situation like this to bring it out. Few rogues were as companionable as Harley, who had taken the us/them mentality to the extreme, listing everyone who'd ever stood against Batman as a potential Best Friend Forever. But even the most unfriendly of the inmates wouldn't have interfered with a breakout. Tried to tag along, maybe, though Harley knew better than to try that with Techie at the helm. But every one of the prisoners knew that putting a halt to someone's breakout was the surest way to get all the rest to band together. Get one person caught, and you made _everyone's_ shit list.

The lock popped open, to Techie's obvious satisfaction. She gave him her hand to help him out into the hallway, then wrapped him up in a fierce hug. He gave her half a second to enjoy it before he pushed her away.

"What were you thinking, locking me up with _Wonder Woman_?" he whispered.

"Hey, she was mind-controlled. And we tied her up with the magic lasso."

"And what was that supposed to accomplish?"

"It takes away her superpowers."

He exhaled sharply.

"No, it _doesn't_."

"But…" She was starting to look horrified. "But I read it…in a book."

"Then the book was wrong, or you're very bad with knots."

"That can't be it. Al was in the girl scouts." She tried to hug him again. He tripped her, and was pleased to watch her face slam into the glass. Harley cheered softly. "Ow! Asshole. Are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

"I'm fine. Let's get out of here before we get caught."

"No one's coming." But she insisted on taking his arm as they went down the hall to the others. "Squishy?"

"Don't call me that," he said. "Not here."

"I'm sorry." She gave his arm a little squeeze. He glanced around at the darkened cells on either side of him, sighed, and gave a stiff nod. Forgiven.

It wasn't so easy when they got to Al. The moment Techie got her door open, she flung herself at Jonathan, then drew up short.

"Will it hurt if I glomp you?"

"What do _you_ think?" he asked sourly. Al looked wounded.

"Oh, Spangles didn't hurt you that bad," Techie scoffed. Bristling, Al made herself into a shield between them.

"Killer Croc threw him through a table."

"Oh." Techie looked up at him, silently asking if it were true. He shrugged. "Well…what are you getting so mad at _me_ for?"

"Giving him Wonder Woman was your idea!"

"Not—not all of it. Captain put her in the cake."

_Oh, really?_ He filed all this information away for later even as he bowed to practicality.

"If you're going to argue, you should do it outside," he reminded them. Techie nodded.

"Right. Al, get Squishy to the Frohike. If Captain and I aren't there in about ten minutes…"

"Okay. Hey, get Eddums, too. His cell should be right next to hers."

"Don't waste your time on him," Jonathan argued. The girls both glared at him. "There's no time.!"

"Some friend you are," Techie grumbled.

"I never claimed to be anyone's _friend_." He gave her a push toward the other cells. "Go. We won't be waiting long."

"Wouldn't expect you to." She melted away in the darkness. Al took Jonathan's arm, clinging possessively as she led him in the opposite direction. He smirked.

"Did they teach you to help little old ladies cross the street this way when you were a girl scout?"

Al stumbled, but quickly regained her composure.

"That was a long time ago, Squishface."

"Did you earn a merit badge for prison breakouts?"

"Shut _up_, Jonathan."

"That makes you—"

"Don't say it!"

"--a Big Blue Girl Scout."

"I'll throw you in front of a bus, I swear!" She started to push him away. Then she hesitated. "Um. Hey, Squish-sama? Did Techie tell you where she parked?"

-*-

Meanwhile, in the other direction, the rescue party of one had run into some confusion of her own.

"Captain?"

"Gnumph."

"Caaaptain," she repeated insistently. The Captain rolled over on her prison-issue cot. She probably intended to pull the covers up over her head, but when the sheet slipped out of her hand, she didn't bother to retrieve it.

"Sleeping."

"Captain, you can't be that comfortable."

"Sleep. Ing."

With a shrug, Techie finished popping the lock, strode into the little cell, and gave her friend a sharp poke in the shoulder.

The Captain should have been grateful. Al would have gone for the ribs.

She slapped Techie's hand away. Harder than usual. Techie slapped her back.

"Get _up_!"

"No!"

Oh, she was wide awake now, and _still_ fighting it with all her stubborn will. Techie threw off the sheet and blanket, grabbed her friend's ankle, and pulled.

"Jesus fucking _Christ_! What?"

"I'm here to rescue you, twit."

"_Fuck you_." She kicked once, twice, three times, until Techie let go and stumbled back.

"God, Captain, what's this all about? I'm trying to _help_ you."

"And I'm trying to sleep. Go help someone who wants it."

"Oh, the Bitch-God speaketh."

"The Bitch-God _sleepeth_." She slammed her face down into her pillow with a thud. Then she groaned, evidently having overestimated its cushioning properties.

Well, if she was going to act like _that_, who needed her? There were plenty of other people who would be grateful for a rescue.

People like Eddie, or so she had to assume. He didn't wake up in the time it took her to open his door. Didn't move, in fact, which, she realized when she came closer, was because he had been strapped down.

Damn. What did they think he was going to do? Honestly, how much threat could _he_ possibly be with guys like Killer Croc just down the hall?

Getting the straps unbuckled was easy enough. Waking him was an entirely different matter.

She nudged his shoulder very gingerly at first, afraid he would react to being woken up as violently as Jonathan always did (or had, before they'd learned to stay out of range.) But for all the reaction Eddie displayed, he might as well have been dead.

"Eddie," she whispered, shaking him harder. "_Eddie_!" She didn't dare go any louder than that; she was pushing her luck just being there, especially after all the time she had just wasted with the Captain. What a stupid smeghead. Carrying on like that, you'd think she _liked_ being in Arkham.

Well, if she couldn't be loud, at least she could be violent. She gave Eddie a light slap across the face and then, when he failed to stir, followed up with a significantly harder one. He jerked away from her hand, opened his eyes, and blinked several times, very slowly.

"S'at for?" he mumbled.

"Eddums? Are you okay?"

"Tech…you…here?"

"Uh, yeah, Eddie. I'm right here." He still looked confused. "I'm here to rescue you."

"Ohhh." He mumbled something about a stormtrooper. Techie shook her head.

"What have they got you on, anyway, elephant tranquilizers?"

"Yep," he said dazedly.

"So you're strapped down, pumped full of enough sedatives to--what did you _do_?" she asked, expecting him to deny any wrongdoing.

"'Tacked a guard." Ah. Techie draped his arm over her shoulders and dragged him off the bed. They didn't have much time to waste--if he'd gone and antagonized the security staff, they would be keeping a closer eye on him than on the others.

She staggered under his weight, barely managing to keep her balance. God, it was like hauling around the drunk Captain, but twice as heavy, and with half the coordination.

"Smeggity--I hope you hurt the guy, at least," Techie grumbled.

"Broke his fist."

She gave him a little pat, remembering just why it was that she was breaking her friends out of this place.

"Come on, Eddums. Let's go pick up the Captain."

-*-

Arkham Asylum was well within Gotham City, nowhere near Nightwing's regular patrol route.

But, somehow, he just kept finding reasons to come back to his old stomping grounds.

And this week's reason was Toyman. He'd shown up in Bludhaven thinking, perhaps, that Dick was still the innocent Boy Wonder. Now he knew better.

Nightwing had decided this required the personal touch, dropping the villain right back in the cell he'd busted out of just days before. There was still enough showman in him to do the whole job, in and out, without being noticed by security or anyone else. Let them find him there first thing in the morning, as if by magic.

Actually, the credit would probably go to Batman. Maybe he should have left a note.

Once outside, half a lifetime of training took over, and he swept the area for anything that seemed out of place.

And there it was, parked just down the street: a rusted out blue hippie van of the Volkswagen variety. Not exactly thematically appropriate, but familiar enough that it automatically conjured up the same kind of feelings a garish purple limousine or a green sedan with question marks on the license plate would have done.

Why the dim bulbs couldn't drive a less conspicuous getaway vehicle, he'd never understand. Not that he was complaining. It was quite handy, knowing that wherever this beat-up VW went, the Scarecrow, or at least his hired help, was sure to follow.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Batman always--all right, _never_--said. Hmm. He needed a better cliché. But the point was that, while maybe seventy-five percent of all clues this obvious lead directly to some form of deathtrap, that still left fully a quarter of Gotham's criminal elite making stupid mistakes on which an enterprising young vigilante could capitalize.

And, if he was being honest, he knew an encounter with these particular hench wenches could be a real treat, whether they wanted to tie him up and strip him of his tights or not.

So, with a reasonable amount of caution, he approached the van, and was almost disappointed to find nothing but a bearded homeless man passed out drunk in an alley, and a woman, bundled up to the eyeballs, struggling with a broken shopping cart full of newspapers and rags, and muttering to herself. He tossed her a salute when he heard her rambling about someone whose name was Bob. Then he turned his attention to Arkham.

Without Batman's extensive notes and files at his disposal, he couldn't be entirely sure what was going on. But he had the feeling he was looking at a breakout.

-*-

"No," the Captain mumbled, cranky as a two-year-old, from the cocoon she had made of her covers.

"Captain, please," Techie said, straining to keep her companion upright. He had long since given up any pretense of standing under his own power. "I need your help. Eddums is heavy."

The Captain was up in an instant, though she left her shaggy hair hanging in her face, to give the illusion that she was still hiding. She draped Eddie's free arm over her shoulders, and Techie breathed a sigh of relief.

Then the next thing she knew, her friend was clinging to the drugged super villain and sobbing wildly, albeit quietly.

"Oh, for god's sake, Captain, what's wrong?"

"Medicated," Eddie mumbled.

"Yes, dear, we know you're 'medicated'."

"He means me," the Captain snapped, and gave them a shove to get them started down the hall.

"You? What have they got you on?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Really?" No way was she buying the Captain's standard evasion this time.

"Nothing, _really_."

"Then in what sense are you medicated?"

"Go!" the Captain said, far too loudly. Techie decided it might be nice to make the rest of the escape in silence. Not another word was spoken until after they had laid the Riddler across the back seat of the Frohike. Then she turned to the sullen, sullen Captain and stated the obvious.

"They're not here."

-*-

Having noticed a distressing lack of activity within the grounds of Arkham, Nightwing returned to the van. It hadn't moved. Nor had the man in the alley.

Dick smelled a trap. He also smelled vomit and bottom shelf gin, which was enough to convince him to give all his attention to the van.

It didn't appear to be observed. Still, he approached with caution.

Stretched out across the backseat was the Riddler, unconscious and wearing the Arkham uniform. So, it was a jailbreak, all right. Nightwing pulled back immediately, scanning the area yet again.

Aha! Movement in the woods.

He didn't think Nigma was going to get up and walk away anytime soon, but better safe than sorry. Nightwing slung the unconscious criminal mastermind over his shoulder and headed back for the grounds, one last time.

-*-

It really shouldn't have been possible to get lost on the way back to Arkham, but Techie and the Captain had managed it. Not that the Captain was much help, trudging along with her eyes on her shoes. They were somebody else's shoes, actually, just as she was wearing somebody else's oversized jeans and somebody else's flannel shirt--just some of the dirty laundry that always seemed to be collecting in the back of the Frohike.

Techie wondered if Jervis knew about this one path through the trees that seemed to lead directly to the building, yet kept depositing them back and the unguarded weak spot in the fence. Three times now it had happened, and she was starting to get fed up.

"Captain, does this path curve somewhere, and I just didn't notice it?"

"No. Straight."

"All right, Captain, out with it. You tell me what's bothering you, or perk up."

The Captain stretched her face into a pained-looking smile. Then she dropped it and pushed on ahead. Techie followed, muttering under her breath about ungrateful little twits who couldn't even be bothered to thank their best friends for busting them out of prison. The Captain stopped dead in her tracks. Techie ran into her.

"I've been stealing Prozac from pharmacies since we started all this mess. Now I'm off it, okay? So nothing is wrong, I'm just back to normal, shut up and leave me alone."

"Captain, I have Prozac at home. It's all yours. Just come home and get it."

The Captain spun around and tackled Techie, sobbing on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry…"

"It's okay--Captain, it's okay!"

"No, it's not. I'm a fucking mess. I belong here."

Techie held her friend tighter. Okay, so she was crazy. No big surprise there. But being in Arkham obviously wasn't doing anything to help her. Techie was just about to point that out when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"What are you two doing on Asylum grounds?"

They both turned around to face the muscle-bound security guard, bigger than both of them put together and holding his nightstick at the ready. Techie froze up. Fortunately, the Captain didn't.

"Asylum grounds?" she asked with a vapid smile, streaky-faced, but not sounding at all as if she had just been crying her eyes out. The guard was unconvinced.

"Didn't you see the fence?"

"There was a fence?"

"And the signs?"

"What signs?"

"And the _insane asylum_?" She followed the direction of his pointing finger.

"Oh, that. Well, it's all the way over there. To be honest, mister…" She took Techie's hand. "We were just looking for a place to make out."

The guard looked startled. Techie nodded quickly.

"Yeah." She moved closer to the Captain. "We're together. You got a problem with that?"

The guard was starting to look pretty dopey. One more good push, and he should forget all about taking them in to check their identities.

"There's got to be somewhere we can do this without guys showing up to stare at us."

They turned to face each other, slowly, drawing it out. The Captain's hand moved up to brush Techie's hair back behind her ear. She always went for the tender romance when sex was what was called for. Techie slipped her hands into her friend's back pockets and pulled her closer.

Their lips met, tenderly at first, but with increasing hunger. The Captain's hand snaked up under Techie's shirt, a move she couldn't reciprocate without revealing the asylum-issue jumpsuit under her friend's clothes. She threw her head back, and in doing so caught a flash of blue behind the utterly befuddled guard. She froze.

"Captain!"

They both turned to look.

It just _had_ to be Nightwing, didn't it? They had been taking a risk leaving the Riddler alone, but they had expected Batman, Robin, Batgirl--_anyone_ but this cocky, jumped-up sidekick who seemed to think it was his right and his duty to make Techie's life a living hell--and the way he looked in those tights wasn't helping matters.

Eddie was barely half conscious, hanging drunkenly from Nightwing's shoulder, but staring every bit as hard as the wide-awake vigilante.

And they were both smirking, the jerks.

"Hey, don't stop."

She ran.

-*-

The homeless man was still asleep in the alley, dreaming dreams of death and terror, when Techie came running alone toward the Frohike, and the woman with the shopping cart still making her rounds. When she saw the henchgirl, she stopped.

"Finally!" She threw back the rags covering the top of her cart, and helped her very cranky boss climb out of it. Techie stumbled when she saw them, but didn't stop.

"Get in the car, get in the car!"

"Where's the Captain?" asked Al.

"Going down with the ship."

"And Eddums?"

Techie said nothing, only opened the car door and threw herself behind the wheel. Al and Jonathan dove into the back seat together. Techie floored it, and they were gone.

And as they sped away from Arkham, Jonathan shook his head.

"I _told_ you not to go after him."

***

* * *

_This was for Techie, without whom I would have no reason to pretend to be a lesbian._

_And for Kathy Roland and Mr. Hocutt, and all the other nice folks at the secure medical facility for the criminally insane. You were good neighbors._

_And for Joe, for reasons I won't go into now._

_And also for the creative forces behind Starsky & Hutch, from whom I stole the title._

_Closing notes: the Riddler is not meant to be exactly twice the Captain's weight (according to the DC encyclopedia, that would put her at about 96 pounds.) I only feel the need to point this out because another writer once made a similar statement regarding Catwoman and the Mad Hatter, which, taken literally, implied that Selina weighed 48 pounds at most. Since reading that, we've often joked that Selina has no skeleton. (I've heard of reducing female characters to nothing but tits and ass, but this is ridiculous.)_


End file.
